Encuentros de Españolas
by byrhthelm
Summary: A short one shot, involving Harm and Skates and an unexpected visitor. Add them together and it could add up to big trouble for our flyboy!


**Encuentros de Españolas**

"Like I've said before," Skates explained patiently, "I eat in the mess-hall five days a week, I have a limited choice of mystery meat and over-cooked veg. When I come here for the weekend, and have the services of a _very_ accomplished chef, I like to eat well!" she grinned unrepentantly as she put her two bulging grocery bags down on the kitchen counter and turned to relieve Harm of one of the three with which he was burdened.

"And anyway, if you did a little bit of shopping every day on your way home, you wouldn't have to do it all in one hit at weekends!"

"But I hate shopping!" Harm explained, "And I am not about to subject myself to torture on a daily basis when I can hold my nose and take all my medicine in one gulp!"

"Oh for Pete's sake, it can't be that bad!" Skates grinned as she started putting various purchases in the appropriate kitchen stowage.

"Oh yes it can!" Harm puffed as he handed two large packets of pasta to her, "Look at this morning for example, every single woman in the line ahead of us waited until she'd been told the total of her spending before she started rummaging at the bottom of the biggest purses I have ever seen, to find her wallet, and then spent at least ten minutes dithering over whether to pay by cash or by card, and if by card then another ten minutes deciding on which card to use!"

"Ohhh! Harm! Don't exaggerate!" Skates laughed as she grabbed a pack of three peppers and opened the fridge door.

"I am not exaggerating!" Harm defended himself, tossing a cantaloupe over the counter to her while she was still by the fridge. "But why can't women be more like men? By the time we got through to the check out, I had my card out of my wallet and all ready to be swiped!"

"Because women don't work like that!" Skates said, surprised that Harm should find it difficult to understand what was to her blindingly obvious, "We keep our money and cards hidden away because we don't want to get them stolen!"

"In a check-out line?" Harm asked disbelievingly.

"Especially in a check-out line!" Skates confirmed. She turned, planted her fists on her hips and glared at her beloved, "Now if you've stopped whining, do you want a coffee?"

"Yeah, I'd love a coffee, thanks. But I wasn't whining!" Harm protested, "I was just explaining just one of the reasons why I don't like to go shopping... Oh, all right., I'm done, I'm done..." he finished uneasily as Skates advanced on him, the light of battle in her eyes and her fingers crooked to tickle him.

"You sure?" she demanded truculently.

"I'm sure, I'm sure!" he repeated hastily retreating towards the couch.

"Good! Now sit down, be still and I'll even bring you a cookie with your coffee!"

"Yes, ma'am" he grinned, "But I still hate shopping!"

Skates whirled around to glare at him once more.

"But I love you," he said with that particular grin that made Skates' heart miss a beat and her knees go rubbery.

"Oh...not fair!" she complained.

"All's fair in love... or so they tell me," Harm smiled.

Skates retreated to the kitchen in considerable disorder muttering under her breath something about "Damned tricky shysters!"

Half an hour later, coffees finished and with Skates' arms wound around his neck while she sat in his lap, her head against her chest, Harm was torn between choosing stay where they were in a comfortable drowse, or picking Skates up in his arms and taking her through to the bedroom and staying in bed with her until hunger drove them back to the kitchen.

The idea of the bedroom won out, and with an effort that a twinge from his lower back told him he would be regretting later, he surged to his feet, Skates still in his arms and ignoring her squeak of surprise.

"Hey what you doing?" she demanded as she roused herself from her comfortable half-asleep state.

"Taking you to bed until it's time to get up, get dinner, and maybe go dancing!" he told her in a throaty growl that sent shivers up and down her spine.

"Oh... I like the way you think, flyboy!" she sighed.

"What? No tricky shyster?" Harm teased her gently as he dropped a kiss onto the top of her head, still conveniently tucked in against his chest.

"Nope, not with that agenda!" Skates chuckled.

It was the work of a few moments for Harm to strip out of his clothes, and a few seconds longer for Skates to reach the same state of undress, before she leaped onto the bed, straddled him and laughed out loud, "Hey there! I'm Skates! Fly me!"

"To the moon and back!" Harm promised.

"Hell, yeah!" Skates exclaimed happily as she bent forward to kiss him!

**xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx**

"Did you hear something?" Skates murmured sleepily, her head resting on Harm's chest once more, as she listened to the slow, regular rhythm

"Nuh-huh," Harm denied, not wanting to open his eyes – or his ears.

"Yeah, definitely something! I can definitely..." she dug Harm in the ribs with a sharp elbow and coming fully awake hissed in alarm, "Harm! There's someone at the door, were you expecting anyone?"

"No!" Harm denied, coming fully awake himself as the import of Skates' words hit home. The only people who might be calling on him unexpectedly on a Saturday were his partner Meg, or, and his blood ran cold at the thought, his mother! And while neither were particularly welcome at this precise moment, an unannounced visit from either could be of the utmost importance, and so, the door had to be answered!

Cramming himself into his jeans and yanking a T-shirt on over his rumpled hair, he hurried into the lounge towards the door from whence came a renewed knocking and a plaintive voice, "'Arm! I know you is there! 'Armon Rabb!"

Recognising the voice, Harm nearly froze to the floor on the spot, this was nearly as bad as his worst fears, and then with a silent consolatory thought of 'at least it's not mom!" he hurried to open the door.

"'Armon Rabb! Hola!" said the neatly uniformed and very attractive brunette who stood holding a flight bag in her hand.

Harm stood and stared helplessly at the young woman as his brain tried to formulate some sort of message that his mouth could articulate.

"Why you don' invite me in?" the flashing eyed brunette demanded, and ever the gentleman, Harm helplessly took a pace back allowing his visitor to enter the apartment.

"An' I don' get no kiss?" she demanded

"Uh no... God no!" Harm blurted out, and then seeing her eyes narrow dangerously, he hastily back pedalled, "Not this time, you see...

"Ne var ne yok?"[*] Skates demanded in a strictly-no-nonsense tone from the doorway leading to the short passage that connected bedroom and bathroom.

The visiting brunette's head swivelled around so fast that Harm thought she'd give herself whiplash, ¿Qué pasa, quién es?" she demanded.

Harm closed his eyes for a second, without some very careful handling and a full engagement with senses of humour this was shaping up to be a very bad evening – and it had only just started.

"Skates, this...this is... uh... I'd like you... uh... I mean you need to meet Maria Elena Carmelita Morena Gutierrez. Maria Elena, this is Elizabeth Hawkes."

Maria Elena, as Harm had introduced her, looked quickly at both of them, and then gurgled with delighted laughter as she took in their disordered hair, their bare feet and the pillow-marks still visible on Harm's face! "Ah su novia!" she chuckled at Harm, but then turned to Skates, "But... perdoname. ¿Tal vez eres su prometida?"[1]

"¡No! ¡Todavía no!"[2] Beth replied her own eyes losing some of their basilisk like quality as she began to see that some humour in the situation. She didn't yet know exactly who this stranger was, but her woman's intuition was telling her that Harm and she were not and had never been an item, and that the visitor was no threat to her.

Maria Elena's eyes sparkled with delight, she dropped her bag and smiled across at Skates, "¡Habla español! ¡Maravilloso!"[3] and then as she took in Skates' colouring she smiled even wider, "¿Eres Mexicana o...?"[4]

Skates shook her head and crossed the room towards Maria Elena, "No, pero crecí en una parte de Florida donde muchas personas hablan español como primera lengua."[5]

"¡Muy bien" Maria Elena enthused but then turning back towards Harm, she grinned mischievously, "But 'Armon Rabb, you have been keeping secrets from me! And from your lovely lady too! Now you sit down an' tell her all about me! An' then we can have a lovely talk an' I can tell her all about your little secrets that Keeter tells me!"

"Keeter!" Harm spat out the name, "Voy a matarlo!"[5]

"But no... you must not kill him, 'Armon, if you do it will make me very sad. You do not want to make me sad, do you?"

Harm laughed, "Maria Elena, you are quite impossible!" he indicated one of the chairs, "Come and sit down before Beth tears me a new one for being inhospitable!"

He waited until Maria Elena had seated herself and then he and Beth curled up together on the couch. "Well?" Beth prompted him.

"Maria Elena..." Harm started.

"'Armon Rabb! I forget 'ow many times I tell you! I am only called Maria on my certificate, because the Church say everyone girl must be called Maria after the Blessed Virgin!" she crossed herself as she said the title, and her eyes showed pleased surprised when Skates did the same.

"So my name is Elena Carmelita, and all my real friends..." she cast a darkling glance at Harm, "just call me Elena!"

Harm's return look was just as dark, "If you've quite done interrupting me..." he said loftily.

"I was not interrupting, Elena denied furiously, "I was explaining!"

"You were and you did again!" Harm pointed out in a long suffering voice before he took up his narrative. "To begin at the beginning, Jack Keeter is an old buddy of mine from the Academy and from flight school. In fact, if it hadn't been for Jack I wouldn't have made through the second year at Annapolis, but that's another story!" he cautioned Beth as he saw a question beginning to frame on her lips.

"Suffice it to say that Jack and I and a couple of others got up to all sorts of tricks at Annapolis and we have enough blackmail material on each that should have guaranteed our mutual silence, but it seems like Jack has been spilling the beans to his girlfriend, the remarkable Elena Gutierrez!" he finished with an ironic bow in that young lady's direction.

"OK..." Beth accepted the first part of Harm's explanation, "but that doesn't really explain why or how your Academy buddy's girlfriend turns up at your door with an overnight bag!"

"It's nothing sinister, or underhand or immoral!" Harm protested his innocence. "It's just a while ago, before the place was really fit to live in, Jack and Elena came to help me one weekend. At the end of the day, Elena decided she wanted a shower and fell in love with it! She swears it's the best, most powerful shower she's ever had, and now whenever she has a layover in DC – that's an Iberia Airlines uniform, she's a senior Flight Attendant – she comes here to have a shower and to change, and sometimes to have dinner before she heads for her hotel!"

"So she cons you out of a shower and a dinner? And then leaves you alone for the night?" Skates asked as she dropped a wink on Harm's blind side to Elena, "Maybe I could learn something from this girl!"

Subtle as her wink was, it had not in fact escaped Harm's notice, "Maybe you could," he agreed as if he was really considering the matter, and then dropped the boom on her, "after all, Maria Elena Carmelita Moreno Gutierrez cooks a mean seafood paella!"

"Oooh!" Skates howled in frustration, "You... you set me up! You damned sneaky, shyster!"

Harm smiled down into Skates' face as she glowered up at him, "Just call it a pre-emptive strike, sweetheart, 'cos I know damned well that once I open the wine, you and Elena are going to spend the whole bottle tearing my character to shreds!"

"Huh, after that dirty little trick of yours, it's going to be two bottles – minimum!" Skates huffed

Elena relaxed back into her chair, she had often wondered how and why Harm hadn't fallen for his blonde Texan cowgirl partner, whom she was convinced was at least half in love with him, but now she smiled in pleased relief as she realised that Harm, of whom she was genuinely fond, had at last found someone to love.

**The End**

(for now)

**xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx**

**Translations:**

[*] What's going on here?**  
**

[1] "Ah, your girlfriend!"... "...forgive me! Perhaps you are his fiancée?

[2] "No! Not yet!"

[3] "You speak Spanish! Wonderful!"

[4] "Are you Mexican, or..."

[5] "No, but I grew up in a part of Florida where many people speak Spanish as their first language."


End file.
